Chapter Text
As the sun shines through the sheer curtains in his room, Gerald Robotnik paces around with a phone to his ear.
“Your due date’s about the same?” he asks, “So there’s about a month remaining?”
The old man pauses at his desk, sitting down to adjust the Lego boxes on top of it. The voice on the other end of the phone seems to confirm and adds a question of their own.
“I believe it’s going alright. I got her legos.”
Gerald sweats as another voice chides him. What would a newborn even do with legos? He immediately rises from his chair.
“I could always save them for her! I’ve got two empty shelves just waiting to be filled!”
The first voice laughs and teases him. He begins pacing again, although with less ferocity this time.
“I would not forget! I’m not that old yet!”
Gerald stammers a bit more before groaning and pinching the bridge of his nose. He takes a seat on the edge of his bed as his grumbling grows quiet.
“...I would forget, wouldn’t I?”
The second voice tells him not to think about that too much, but Gerald won’t hear it. He will get his granddaughter a good present if it kills him!
“It’s fine, I promise I’ll find her something else! I’ll make sure I get it right this time.”
The two voices offer words of encouragement before explaining that they must go. Gerald sighs with a weary smile.
“I appreciate that. Love you both. Be sure to eat and rest well. Bye.”
After he aggressively presses the button to hang up, the old man pinches the bridge of his nose again. What is he going to do now? He bought all those legos on sale and the store had a strict no-returns policy.
Perhaps he could give them a spin…
Gerald shakes his head. No no no! He should keep them for Maria just to prove his daughter-in-law wrong. Or sell them online. Or give them to a nice kid in the neighborhood.
…But nobody would know if he didn’t do those things, right? What would the harm be? He could still give them to Maria or a neighborhood kid if he so decided in the end.
The old man taps his foot in thought before hesitantly sitting down at his desk again. He takes the smallest of the boxes and stares at its picture. The set consists of an ebony hedgehog, a vaguely animalistic robot, a motorcycle, and a sinister-looking toll booth. With a small rip and the crinkling sound of plastic, the box is open and the bags are already poured out on the tabletop.
Gerald empties the bricks from the plastic bags and grimaces as he sees how small they are. Definitely not appropriate for a newborn. Despite his chagrin, he swiftly puts all the pieces together in a haze that lasts less than thirty minutes.
He brings the minifigure closer to his eyes with a squint. The hedgehog’s spiky quills and grumpy frown makes him laugh.
“What an edgelord! I wonder what’s got you so peeved,” Gerald muses. He briefly leaves his desk with the completed set to put it on the empty shelf almost directly to his left.
As he builds the other sets, Gerald entertains himself by making fun of them. He moves on to the biggest set that has an animal sanctuary, a couple birds, a pig, a crab robot, an amber fox, and a pink hedgehog. He holds the fox in one hand and the other hedgehog with her hammer in the other. The fox grabs his attention first.
“You look bright eyed, huh?” he chuckles, “Perhaps overly optimistic. You’d think you could fly with those two tails of yours! Although that's boarding on insanity, huh?”
A moment passes before he says anything about the pink hedgehog. He takes a long look at her expression before shrugging to himself.
“You seem nice. Not much else to say, but the hammer implies a bit of a temper, I guess.”
With all his inhibition gone, Gerald tears the last box open. It contains a couple grassy structures, one of which is an arch, a DJ board, a beach table, an odd plastic capsule, its launcher, and a blue hedgehog. He carefully scans the last hedgehog’s expression.
“That smirk of yours suggests that you’re either witty or a bit of an asshole. I think a bit of both, perhaps. Considering you both came alone in your boxes, I bet you’re as independent as the edgelord.”
Gerald chuckles to himself as he arranges the other two sets on a different shelf. The ebony hedgehog remains alone on the shelf to the right of the other minifigures, not that the old man notices.
Beaming with pride and a bit of ego, Gerald admires his work. He finds it hard to regret his decision when all three sets fit perfectly on the two shelves. As his energy wears off, he shakes his head, thinking that he should stop talking to himself and figure out the new present.
The old man swiftly leaves his room to do some more thinking. In his haste, he fails to notice the glowing figure who is peering through his window.